Fine Arts Lecture Series – Jinny Yu

In this artist talk, Jinny Yu will reflect on the past decade of her practice and explore how her work has responded to unfolding world events. She will discuss the processes behind key bodies of work, including Don’t They Ever Stop Migrating? (2015), Not Even Silence Gets Us Out of the Circle (2017), why does its lock fit my key? (2018), Perpetual Guest (2019), Hôte (2020), Perpetual Guest 2019/2022 Impossibility of Repair (2023), Inextricably Ours (2024), and Superposition (2025). She will also present her ongoing project, the Canadian BIPOC Artists Rolodex, and consider the ways in which it has shaped and informed her artistic practice.

The Canadian BIPOC Artists Rolodex is a searchable database designed to support research, teaching, and exhibitions of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) artists, who remain underrepresented in Canadian art institutions. Its name references the historical reality that BIPOC artists were often known primarily through personal and artistic networks rather than institutional recognition. The Rolodex aims to facilitate early-phase research on these artists and to increase their visibility in curricula, publications, and exhibitions. Conceived as a hybrid of curated platform, digital humanities project, and advocacy initiative, it is an infrastructure that addresses gaps in representation and access within the art world.

Jinny Yu is a painter and educator whose work investigates the complexities of belonging and place, using abstraction as a lens for ethical, transcultural, and political inquiry. Moving fluidly between abstraction and conceptual strategies, her practice reimagines relationships across difference, difficult histories, and urgent social issues. Since the early 2000s, Yu has exhibited internationally. Her project Don’t They Ever Stop Migrating? was presented at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). Recent major solo exhibitions include Jinny Yu: At Once (Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2024) and Superposition (Fondation Guido Molinari, Montréal, 2025). 
Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Ottawa Art Gallery, and Confederation Centre Art Gallery.